Local doctor combines depression questionairres into mobile device

Want to track your sadness? Check your iPod or iPhone.

Dr. Harvey Castro, a Lantana resident, is in the midst of creating a series of applications for Apple’s iPod touch and iPhone that he hopes will make a difference in many people’s lives.

Among those is Sad Scale, an application designed to help people screen for depression.

Castro said many things trigger depression, especially the economy, which has people worried about employment and health care.

“When I was in the ER, I had seen a lot of psychiatric patients,” Castro said. “I saw many cases where they died or they tried to harm themselves. I thought that if they had gotten help earlier, there would have been a different outcome. I started wondering if putting a depression scale on an iPod would help these patients.”

So two years ago, Castro, an emergency medicine physician at Las Colinas Medical Center, began brainstorming for this side project. Last year he put his ideas to paper and by December, he was running tests. The application became available in April.

Sad Scale features four screening tests, which Harvey got from existing scales and combined into this program. Questionnaires in this application come from the Zung Depression Test, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the Geriatric Depression Scale. Castro’s application also includes the newly created scale for children depression, along with a scale created by a Canadian doctor, who gave Castro permission to use it in Sad Scale.

During the questionnaire, users are asked to rank the frequency on a variety of subjects they experience. Those range from health symptoms, such as headaches, to emotional urges, such as how often someone blames themselves when something goes wrong.

The scores are then calculated, and the application tracks the user’s scores and graphs the results. Those results can then be emailed to the user’s primary care doctor, OB/GYN doctor or health care provider, which Castro said is key for the program since it was never intended to replace patient-doctor interaction.

“The topic is not something that most people are comfortable talking with their doctor about,” Castro said. “And, nowadays, doctors don’t spend an hour with a patient. But now, you bring the results of these questionnaires to the doctor and then say, ‘What do you think?’”

Other features of Sad Scale include a resource button that takes users to helpful sites for facilities across the country, such as mental health centers.

As with many applications, Sad Scale is a work in progress. Castro said he expects to add an update within the next couple of weeks that provides a toolbar for users to insert their mood daily or weekly. Castro said that’s another way patients and doctors can discuss emotional trends.

All updates are free, and there is a one-time charge of 99 cents to download the application.

So far, the application has been successful, Castro said. While Sad Scale is only available in English, Castro said it has been purchased across the globe, including Canada, Japan, Australia and South America.

Closer to home, Castro said the National Organization for Suicide has posted a link to the application on its Web site.

In addition to Sad Scale, Castro has created two applications beneficial to the medical field: IV Meds and Stat Meds. Examples of their use include allowing a nurse to run a calculation on how much medicine to give based on a patient’s weight and other information.

IV Meds takes the user to a page that lists a variety of medication. The doctor then clicks on the concentration, followed by the patient's weight and the program instantly shows how much the dosage should be.

"This cuts the time down by at least half," said Michael Seifu, nursing supervisor at Las Colinas Medical Center. "A big advantage of this is the speed, but it's also updatable. This way, we don't have to go buy another book. That's good because we're supposed to use drug references for no more than two years."

Seifu added that the ability to instantly look up information on an abundance of medication is a plus.

Castro has also created ABC Cursive Writing, an application that helps children practice their handwriting, which some say is a dying art. A feature of ABC Cursive Writing is that it lets children write their name or phone number, and the program will repeat it back to them.

“It’s really good for safety,” Castro said.

Castro said he awaiting approval from Apple for an application he designed called Stress Index, which measures a person’s stress level based on a questionnaire. Like Sad Scale, the results can be sent to the doctor to be used as a starting point on dealing with stress.

With these applications available on the iPod and iPhone Touch, Castro said anyone around the world will have some help at their fingertips.

“There are 40 million iPhones and iPod touches on the market right now,” Castro said. “By the end of the summer, they will be sold in 80 countries. So this is very exciting.”

For information on any of these applications, go to www.deeppocketseries.com.

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